he question at hand seems to be one of whether GUI's and other elements of program I/O (this so-called "functional structure") come under copyright protection as elements of a creative rendering or patent protection as means of achieving a computational purpose;
A patent says, "I invented the color red. You can't use it." A copyright says, "I mixed red, blue, and green in this way, you can't copy it." Thus, for GUI patents, the question is not, "does it use rectangular areas of information", but, "are the rectangular areas layed out in the same way."
If the two systems are essentially visually identical, in both form and flow, then there may be an issue. If they have the same information and perform the same function, but do not look the same, copyright does not apply.
Or rather, it should not, but the lawyers don't make any money when the answers are cut and dried, so I'm sure that soon enough the official legal answer will become, "maybe."
At a minimum, IP sources should be checked to assure that copyright contributors have the authority to transfer copyrights in the code contributed to Open Source. This is just basic due diligence that governs every other part of corporate dealings.
OK, so what exactly is due diligence in software development? I would assume that it boils down to a few simple things: 1. Checking for license compatibility with all contributed code that is known to be copyrighted. 2. Removing on request any code which was not known to be copyrighted and license-incompatible at the time of contribution, but is later discovered to be, upon reasonable proof. 3. Admonishing contributors who non-negligently contribute such coprighted and license-incompatible code. 4. Barring contributors who negligently (or worse) contribute such copyrighted and license-incompatible code.
I am assuming that those are pretty much the standards employed by commercial software vendors, and I would assume that they are the same standards followed by the Linux kernel development process. Certainly the willingness to remove any offending code that is brought to light is well documented in the responses from the kernel keepers.
These standards seem to be the standards employed by many of the resellers of IP on the web, such as iTunes, MP3.com, eBay, etc.
So where lies the problem Mr. McBride? Tell us what your gripe is and we'll remove it. The Linux kernel code is published for all to see (including by your own company) - if there's a problem, identify it. Surely you are not supposing that there was criminal intent in the inclusion of this code, and from the above it appears that due diligence has been exercised. As an alternative, why don't you put a sock in it?
Pick your analogy, driving a car, building a home, operating a microwave or television, etc... The general public cares as little about computers as "we" do about how our cars operate. We just want to get in them and drive.
This is precisely the reason that the World's most popular operating system is painful to me. Hamstringing Linux is not the answer. The average person does not want to fiddle with a manual transmission, and does not want shifts to jolt the car - that does not mean that the noisy, difficult-to-shift manual in the Dodge SRT/4 or the whiplash-inducing Formula 1 style tranny in the Ferarri Enzo should be replaced with slushy automatics.
Debian is hands down the most superuser-friendly OS on the market today. It doesn't have the shiny candy-like buttons on the installer (which is more bark than bite - it is intimidating but not difficult) - but when it comes to easy remote administration, knowing that the security patches will be there when you need them, and installing just about every open source app you'll need with near zero effort, Debian is without equal.
I've run servers on 3 or 4 Windowses, half a dozen Linux distros, two BSDs, and two Unices. Debian is far and away the shortest path to productivity.
It seems to me that this thing could be self funding. If, for example, most of the major contributors to the Linux kernel were to offer a 50% stake in the awards in exchange for OSN handling the legal aspect, OSN could do copyright infringement settlements in cases like the Cisco Linux based routers that were being shipped without offering source code (I think it was Cisco), and full blown litigation with companies like SCO (who is continuing to distribute the Linux kernel in direct violation of the GPL).
Theoretically, this could provide sufficient funding to retain the attorneys for any defensive issues. The only risk is that companies will stop violating the GPL and the source of funding will dry up, but that doesn't sound like such a bad thing; we'd just have to go back to contributing to a fund like this.
Oh well, just another shining example of how Fox knows how to cancel the best shows:
In order to cancel a great show, a network must first run a great show. I'd rather see Futurama cancelled after a few seasons than endure yet another not-yet-discovered-plastic-actors-pretending-they' re-doing-a-reality-show show on NBABCBS. We should be giving Fox credit for having the balls to put on risky shows in the first place, not chastising them for pulling them when they're running below the red line.
Forget it. India has laws barring non-Indians from working there.
Maybe, I never looked into India, but I did look into Croatia. They're very supportive of foreigners coming in to develop international trade. I can't find the specific information, but this should be a good starting point. The amount of financial and legal aid available is pretty substantial.
I'll work cheaper if I can choose where I live and work.
Really? How's $1000 - $1250 per month sound? (that's gross, not take home) Current estimate is that tech workers in India cost about $2000 - $2500 per month, including overhead. In the US, total cost of a white collar employee is about 2x salary.
Must I leave my country to do so?
Yes. India is beautiful though, as are the eastern block countries (check out the Mediterranean coast of the former Yugoslavia). Learn their language and run a tech department and act as liaison to US companies. You may not even have to take a huge pay cut, and compared to cost of living you'll be living like a king.
Could you show up for the subpoena, say, "Anyone who wants to can use my IP address. I don't keep track of who and when. I do not pirate music, and I do not know who was using my IP address at the time the music was pirated. I will be happy to remove any offending files and software I can find on my computer (if indeed the IP address was being used by my computer at the time), and I will continue to let anyone use my IP address. This time I'm going to be nice and not sue you for this blatantly false allegation. Next time I won't be so friendly, so please be sure to identify the human, not the IP address that is breaking the law, and have credible witnesses."
Are you allowed to withhold evidence that would implicate another person in a civil trial? If the RIAA asked you, while you were on the stand, for a list of all the people who have been in your house in the past month, could you say, "blow me."? It would seem that these facts do not directly relate to the charge that you did or did not pirate the songs. Can you be forced to testify in a civil trial or only in criminal trials?
While a court could find that the DMCA allows the circumvention of protections on works in the public domain, the statute nonetheless prohibits trafficking in tools intended for use in circumventing controls on protected works. While those same tools could potentially be used to remove access or copy controls on works in the public domain, it may still be unlawful under the DMCA to traffic in them.
The answer is clear then. From now on all circumvention tools must be marketed as "intended for use only on works which have entered the public domain".
This is exactly the same way in which a lawyer can give you legal advice and say, "this is not legal advice" and have no liability. It's the same way in which herbal supplements stay, "Promotes Alertness (this claim has not been verified by the FDA)" and get past FDA labelling restrictions.
That is, it is not about acting within the spirit of the law - that would be true if we had a common law system. It is about acting within the letter of the law.
William H. Gross, of Newport Beach (Calif.)'s Pacific Investment Management Co., who often meditates with yoga before a day of trading at his $349 billion money-management firm.
Has anyone ever listened to Bill Gross's bond recommendations? They always seem to do much worse than his actual holdings...
In investment banking, the primary job of traders is not to make recommendations, but to make prices. And AFAIK traders can't hold personal positions in the markets they handle.
People (institutional investors and brokers) call looking for a price on some quantity of a product, and it's the bond (commodity / equity / option / structure) trader's job to decide or report at what price the firm is interested in doing the deal (frequently with the help of a buttload of real time math and spreadsheets the size of a football field). It is assumed that the buyer already knows what price he or she is looking for - there's little if any recommending going on.
In turn they are rewarded for doing deals that make money for the firm (or reduce risk at a low cost), it is the customer's job to take care of their own interests.
Put another way, the only real altruistic goal of investment banks is to provide liquidity in the marketplace - to ensure that when someone wants to buy or sell something, there is a price (even if it's really high or really low) at which the deal can be done.
The person you deal with, who tells you what to buy, is a personal investment advisor. You then trade through a broker, who trades through a trader.
Forrester Research '...estimated that 450,000 computer industry jobs could be transferred abroad in the next 12 years, representing 8 percent of the nation's computer jobs.'
Forgive me for being an optimist, but if the computer job growth rate doesn't beat the hell out of 8% total (not annual) over the next 12 years then the US economy as a whole is in a lot more trouble than just you and your job security.
Does anyone here seriously think this whole "information science" thing has played itself out? Come on people, use your head. This is a slump, the wheat is getting culled from the chaff and the lean mean fighting machines that are being brewed in people's basements right now are going to go beyond anything imagined in the wildest VC dog and pony show from 4 years ago.
In 12 years we'll have exported the menial computer science labour, but the high-end, US-centric computer science labour will still be here, and the total market for computer science will be at least 100% larger (I'm betting that's a big underestimate). As software development becomes an increasingly advanced science, customers are going to demand ever higher degrees of customization with a shorter turnaround time. Unless global adoption of English and videoconferencing both take a collosal step forward, being in the same city (let alone the same continent) is going to be worth the cost.
So quit whining and keep learning. The jobs are going to be harder, but they'll be plentiful and a lot more fun. Better yet, head out to your garage and start building a better CRM app.
In Phoenix, we have two different Cablemodem providers, with some fairly significant overlapping coverage, but all of the independent DSL line providers for residential closed except for Qwest, and Qwest still uses Pair Gain, which kills DSL.
FWIW, I too live in Phoenix, and can verify that my DSL speed is pretty weak considering how close I am to the CO. If you do need static IPs for a reasonable price though, you can get a pretty good deal with QWest on local loop and Deru on bandwidth.
I've never had to talk to their tech support, so I don't know if they're customer oriented, but I did colo a server with them and I can testify that they are true geeks. The sales guy I talked to was the same guy that pulled the cat 5 to my box.
I recently read that one of the big communist or socialist writers (Marx maybe?) said that fascism could be better called corporatism, so I see your point. OTOH, I think there is a strong conception (supported by the definitions of fascism at dictionary.com) that fascism is "a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government" - that fascism is about concentration of power with a small group.
In the US, we are moving toward a subset of fascism where the corporations and lawyers are the concentrated group. As such, while I agree that "fascism" is an accurate term, I feel that it is not sufficiently specific. For example, India's caste system and Australia's lack of representation of Aborigines also fit the above definition of fascism, but are not corporate oriented.
No, I call it a corporatist society. In corporatism, the government is charged with the maintenance of power of the major corporations.
What happened to laissez faire ideals, free market and all that.
In a laissez faire system, there is no concept of intellectual property law. Laissez faire is based on the natural laws of scarcity. Microsoft's monopoly is based on artificial scarcity established by our corporatist government through intellectual property laws.
Whether corporatism is the best course for our nation I will leave to other threads. I only intend herein to correct your misuse of the terms "capitalism" and "laissez faire."
Pardon my flagrant opnionation here, but I envision the following:
MS Coder: Boss, we've got a problem. MS Boss: What is it? MS Coder: It turns out you can't trust the "keywords" meta-tag. MS Boss: What?!? MS Coder: Seriously. Some unscrupulous people abuse it. MS Boss: Crap. Now what? MS Coder: Well, it seems we're going to have to come up with a smarter algorithm than "index by keyword metatag". MS Boss: But Google didn't have to write any fancy software. MS Coder: Actually, we're now operating on the theory that Google does in fact have some fairly advanced software. MS Boss: Advanced?!? You mean like technically advanced? MS Coder: Yeah, it looks that way. MS Boss: But we don't write our own technically advanced software - we wrap mediocre implementations of Unix technology in Macintosh user friendliness. MS Coder: I know - it's a bit of a problem. MS Boss: Pity we can't "partner" with them. MS Coder: Yeah, like Stac, Java, and that smartphone company.
So here's what I'm curious about - how illegal is it to receive and redistribute copyrighted code if you don't know it's copyrighted? SCO is implying that Linus is negligent for not verifying the legality of the code he redistributes. This seems like an extremely impractical amount of onus to place on a publisher. Is he supposed to diff each contribution against every line of code ever written?
They specifically mention patents, and the same concept seems to apply - is a person liable to check all 6 million patents before publishing any code?
In the transition to a fully open source office, the initial training expense is high (not because Windows is easier, but because everyone already knows how to use it). After the initial expense, and assuming a large installed base (to facilitate peer support), the cost savings are enormous. Government offices are the perfect places to take advantage of these facts - no quarterly stockholder reports to worry about means the initial expense won't affect anyone's bonus, and the massive user base makes peer support extremely cost effective.
Wholly aside from the cost efficiency aspect is the open government and independence issue. As things stand, Brazil is dependent on Microsoft, and runs on software to which Brazil's citizens have no access. This is hardly an appropriate position for democracy to find itself in.
Companies must put up $100,000 just to see the technical information about the 133 protocols, which helps a potential licensee determine if it wants or needs any of them. But if the company chooses not to license, it gets back only $50,000.
Somebody send a correction to the Washington Post. When making fun of an underskilled and overarrogant programmer or group of programmers, the correct derogatory spelling would be, "l33t protocols".
Repetitive Stress Injury is what I have. You get it from doing the same thing for extended periods of time like keyboarding. It has varying symptoms (for me, it's sore knuckles). Carpal Tunnel is a specific malady which may or may not be related to repetitive stress. Some RSI symptoms are very similar to some Carpal Tunnel symptoms.
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he question at hand seems to be one of whether GUI's and other elements of program I/O (this so-called "functional structure") come under copyright protection as elements of a creative rendering or patent protection as means of achieving a computational purpose;
A patent says, "I invented the color red. You can't use it." A copyright says, "I mixed red, blue, and green in this way, you can't copy it." Thus, for GUI patents, the question is not, "does it use rectangular areas of information", but, "are the rectangular areas layed out in the same way."
If the two systems are essentially visually identical, in both form and flow, then there may be an issue. If they have the same information and perform the same function, but do not look the same, copyright does not apply.
Or rather, it should not, but the lawyers don't make any money when the answers are cut and dried, so I'm sure that soon enough the official legal answer will become, "maybe."
At a minimum, IP sources should be checked to assure that copyright contributors have the authority to transfer copyrights in the code contributed to Open Source. This is just basic due diligence that governs every other part of corporate dealings.
OK, so what exactly is due diligence in software development? I would assume that it boils down to a few simple things:
1. Checking for license compatibility with all contributed code that is known to be copyrighted.
2. Removing on request any code which was not known to be copyrighted and license-incompatible at the time of contribution, but is later discovered to be, upon reasonable proof.
3. Admonishing contributors who non-negligently contribute such coprighted and license-incompatible code.
4. Barring contributors who negligently (or worse) contribute such copyrighted and license-incompatible code.
I am assuming that those are pretty much the standards employed by commercial software vendors, and I would assume that they are the same standards followed by the Linux kernel development process. Certainly the willingness to remove any offending code that is brought to light is well documented in the responses from the kernel keepers.
These standards seem to be the standards employed by many of the resellers of IP on the web, such as iTunes, MP3.com, eBay, etc.
So where lies the problem Mr. McBride? Tell us what your gripe is and we'll remove it. The Linux kernel code is published for all to see (including by your own company) - if there's a problem, identify it. Surely you are not supposing that there was criminal intent in the inclusion of this code, and from the above it appears that due diligence has been exercised. As an alternative, why don't you put a sock in it?
Server 2003. If Linux is going to simplify that, there must be some readily demonstrable ways in which it does so.
Have you ever tried logging into a Windows server and upgrading the operating system over a modem line? It's pretty easy with Linux.
Pick your analogy, driving a car, building a home, operating a microwave or television, etc... The general public cares as little about computers as "we" do about how our cars operate. We just want to get in them and drive.
This is precisely the reason that the World's most popular operating system is painful to me. Hamstringing Linux is not the answer. The average person does not want to fiddle with a manual transmission, and does not want shifts to jolt the car - that does not mean that the noisy, difficult-to-shift manual in the Dodge SRT/4 or the whiplash-inducing Formula 1 style tranny in the Ferarri Enzo should be replaced with slushy automatics.
Debian is hands down the most superuser-friendly OS on the market today. It doesn't have the shiny candy-like buttons on the installer (which is more bark than bite - it is intimidating but not difficult) - but when it comes to easy remote administration, knowing that the security patches will be there when you need them, and installing just about every open source app you'll need with near zero effort, Debian is without equal.
I've run servers on 3 or 4 Windowses, half a dozen Linux distros, two BSDs, and two Unices. Debian is far and away the shortest path to productivity.
It seems to me that this thing could be self funding. If, for example, most of the major contributors to the Linux kernel were to offer a 50% stake in the awards in exchange for OSN handling the legal aspect, OSN could do copyright infringement settlements in cases like the Cisco Linux based routers that were being shipped without offering source code (I think it was Cisco), and full blown litigation with companies like SCO (who is continuing to distribute the Linux kernel in direct violation of the GPL).
Theoretically, this could provide sufficient funding to retain the attorneys for any defensive issues. The only risk is that companies will stop violating the GPL and the source of funding will dry up, but that doesn't sound like such a bad thing; we'd just have to go back to contributing to a fund like this.
Oh well, just another shining example of how Fox knows how to cancel the best shows:
' re-doing-a-reality-show show on NBABCBS. We should be giving Fox credit for having the balls to put on risky shows in the first place, not chastising them for pulling them when they're running below the red line.
In order to cancel a great show, a network must first run a great show. I'd rather see Futurama cancelled after a few seasons than endure yet another not-yet-discovered-plastic-actors-pretending-they
Forget it. India has laws barring non-Indians from working there.
Maybe, I never looked into India, but I did look into Croatia. They're very supportive of foreigners coming in to develop international trade. I can't find the specific information, but this should be a good starting point. The amount of financial and legal aid available is pretty substantial.
working in their underware.
Is underware the layer below middleware?
I'll work cheaper if I can choose where I live and work.
Really? How's $1000 - $1250 per month sound? (that's gross, not take home) Current estimate is that tech workers in India cost about $2000 - $2500 per month, including overhead. In the US, total cost of a white collar employee is about 2x salary.
Must I leave my country to do so?
Yes. India is beautiful though, as are the eastern block countries (check out the Mediterranean coast of the former Yugoslavia). Learn their language and run a tech department and act as liaison to US companies. You may not even have to take a huge pay cut, and compared to cost of living you'll be living like a king.
Could you show up for the subpoena, say, "Anyone who wants to can use my IP address. I don't keep track of who and when. I do not pirate music, and I do not know who was using my IP address at the time the music was pirated. I will be happy to remove any offending files and software I can find on my computer (if indeed the IP address was being used by my computer at the time), and I will continue to let anyone use my IP address. This time I'm going to be nice and not sue you for this blatantly false allegation. Next time I won't be so friendly, so please be sure to identify the human, not the IP address that is breaking the law, and have credible witnesses."
Are you allowed to withhold evidence that would implicate another person in a civil trial? If the RIAA asked you, while you were on the stand, for a list of all the people who have been in your house in the past month, could you say, "blow me."? It would seem that these facts do not directly relate to the charge that you did or did not pirate the songs. Can you be forced to testify in a civil trial or only in criminal trials?
While a court could find that the DMCA allows the circumvention of protections on works in the public domain, the statute nonetheless prohibits trafficking in tools intended for use in circumventing controls on protected works. While those same tools could potentially be used to remove access or copy controls on works in the public domain, it may still be unlawful under the DMCA to traffic in them.
The answer is clear then. From now on all circumvention tools must be marketed as "intended for use only on works which have entered the public domain".
This is exactly the same way in which a lawyer can give you legal advice and say, "this is not legal advice" and have no liability. It's the same way in which herbal supplements stay, "Promotes Alertness (this claim has not been verified by the FDA)" and get past FDA labelling restrictions.
That is, it is not about acting within the spirit of the law - that would be true if we had a common law system. It is about acting within the letter of the law.
William H. Gross, of Newport Beach (Calif.)'s Pacific Investment Management Co., who often meditates with yoga before a day of trading at his $349 billion money-management firm.
Has anyone ever listened to Bill Gross's bond recommendations? They always seem to do much worse than his actual holdings...
In investment banking, the primary job of traders is not to make recommendations, but to make prices. And AFAIK traders can't hold personal positions in the markets they handle.
People (institutional investors and brokers) call looking for a price on some quantity of a product, and it's the bond (commodity / equity / option / structure) trader's job to decide or report at what price the firm is interested in doing the deal (frequently with the help of a buttload of real time math and spreadsheets the size of a football field). It is assumed that the buyer already knows what price he or she is looking for - there's little if any recommending going on.
In turn they are rewarded for doing deals that make money for the firm (or reduce risk at a low cost), it is the customer's job to take care of their own interests.
Put another way, the only real altruistic goal of investment banks is to provide liquidity in the marketplace - to ensure that when someone wants to buy or sell something, there is a price (even if it's really high or really low) at which the deal can be done.
The person you deal with, who tells you what to buy, is a personal investment advisor. You then trade through a broker, who trades through a trader.
Forrester Research '...estimated that 450,000 computer industry jobs could be transferred abroad in the next 12 years, representing 8 percent of the nation's computer jobs.'
Forgive me for being an optimist, but if the computer job growth rate doesn't beat the hell out of 8% total (not annual) over the next 12 years then the US economy as a whole is in a lot more trouble than just you and your job security.
Does anyone here seriously think this whole "information science" thing has played itself out? Come on people, use your head. This is a slump, the wheat is getting culled from the chaff and the lean mean fighting machines that are being brewed in people's basements right now are going to go beyond anything imagined in the wildest VC dog and pony show from 4 years ago.
In 12 years we'll have exported the menial computer science labour, but the high-end, US-centric computer science labour will still be here, and the total market for computer science will be at least 100% larger (I'm betting that's a big underestimate). As software development becomes an increasingly advanced science, customers are going to demand ever higher degrees of customization with a shorter turnaround time. Unless global adoption of English and videoconferencing both take a collosal step forward, being in the same city (let alone the same continent) is going to be worth the cost.
So quit whining and keep learning. The jobs are going to be harder, but they'll be plentiful and a lot more fun. Better yet, head out to your garage and start building a better CRM app.
In Phoenix, we have two different Cablemodem providers, with some fairly significant overlapping coverage, but all of the independent DSL line providers for residential closed except for Qwest, and Qwest still uses Pair Gain, which kills DSL.
FWIW, I too live in Phoenix, and can verify that my DSL speed is pretty weak considering how close I am to the CO. If you do need static IPs for a reasonable price though, you can get a pretty good deal with QWest on local loop and Deru on bandwidth.
I've never had to talk to their tech support, so I don't know if they're customer oriented, but I did colo a server with them and I can testify that they are true geeks. The sales guy I talked to was the same guy that pulled the cat 5 to my box.
I certainly hope it's safe to assume that Linus will be suing the living crap out of them for damage to his trademark.
Sounds like a major breakthrough in security.
Hahahaahahaha. Sounds more like a dictionary attack waiting to happen.
It really is just an obfuscated email address. He can now be reached at "marie.antoinette@ivorytower.com".
That's called Fascism [not corporatism].
I recently read that one of the big communist or socialist writers (Marx maybe?) said that fascism could be better called corporatism, so I see your point. OTOH, I think there is a strong conception (supported by the definitions of fascism at dictionary.com) that fascism is "a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government" - that fascism is about concentration of power with a small group.
In the US, we are moving toward a subset of fascism where the corporations and lawyers are the concentrated group. As such, while I agree that "fascism" is an accurate term, I feel that it is not sufficiently specific. For example, India's caste system and Australia's lack of representation of Aborigines also fit the above definition of fascism, but are not corporate oriented.
You call this a capitalist society?
No, I call it a corporatist society. In corporatism, the government is charged with the maintenance of power of the major corporations.
What happened to laissez faire ideals, free market and all that.
In a laissez faire system, there is no concept of intellectual property law. Laissez faire is based on the natural laws of scarcity. Microsoft's monopoly is based on artificial scarcity established by our corporatist government through intellectual property laws.
Whether corporatism is the best course for our nation I will leave to other threads. I only intend herein to correct your misuse of the terms "capitalism" and "laissez faire."
Pardon my flagrant opnionation here, but I envision the following:
MS Coder: Boss, we've got a problem.
MS Boss: What is it?
MS Coder: It turns out you can't trust the "keywords" meta-tag.
MS Boss: What?!?
MS Coder: Seriously. Some unscrupulous people abuse it.
MS Boss: Crap. Now what?
MS Coder: Well, it seems we're going to have to come up with a smarter algorithm than "index by keyword metatag".
MS Boss: But Google didn't have to write any fancy software.
MS Coder: Actually, we're now operating on the theory that Google does in fact have some fairly advanced software.
MS Boss: Advanced?!? You mean like technically advanced?
MS Coder: Yeah, it looks that way.
MS Boss: But we don't write our own technically advanced software - we wrap mediocre implementations of Unix technology in Macintosh user friendliness.
MS Coder: I know - it's a bit of a problem.
MS Boss: Pity we can't "partner" with them.
MS Coder: Yeah, like Stac, Java, and that smartphone company.
So here's what I'm curious about - how illegal is it to receive and redistribute copyrighted code if you don't know it's copyrighted? SCO is implying that Linus is negligent for not verifying the legality of the code he redistributes. This seems like an extremely impractical amount of onus to place on a publisher. Is he supposed to diff each contribution against every line of code ever written?
They specifically mention patents, and the same concept seems to apply - is a person liable to check all 6 million patents before publishing any code?
but is making it mandatory going too far?
In the transition to a fully open source office, the initial training expense is high (not because Windows is easier, but because everyone already knows how to use it). After the initial expense, and assuming a large installed base (to facilitate peer support), the cost savings are enormous. Government offices are the perfect places to take advantage of these facts - no quarterly stockholder reports to worry about means the initial expense won't affect anyone's bonus, and the massive user base makes peer support extremely cost effective.
Wholly aside from the cost efficiency aspect is the open government and independence issue. As things stand, Brazil is dependent on Microsoft, and runs on software to which Brazil's citizens have no access. This is hardly an appropriate position for democracy to find itself in.
Companies must put up $100,000 just to see the technical information about the 133 protocols, which helps a potential licensee determine if it wants or needs any of them. But if the company chooses not to license, it gets back only $50,000.
Somebody send a correction to the Washington Post. When making fun of an underskilled and overarrogant programmer or group of programmers, the correct derogatory spelling would be, "l33t protocols".
Repetitive Stress Injury is what I have. You get it from doing the same thing for extended periods of time like keyboarding. It has varying symptoms (for me, it's sore knuckles). Carpal Tunnel is a specific malady which may or may not be related to repetitive stress. Some RSI symptoms are very similar to some Carpal Tunnel symptoms.